Ready for preserves.

Venus is where she should be at 6 a.m., 15 degrees or so above the eastern horizon, shining bright and constant. The dawn is far enough away that the ridgeline is just visible against the hint of a rising light. Just over my shoulder, Mars keeps Diana company in watching as her charge wanes to three-quarters. So I sit, drinking my coffee in the early morning, with love, war, and the huntress — the only ones with the power to fight off the coming day, at least for another hour.

Making my way to my usual perch this fine Sunday morn, I passed through a fresh pile of dirt on the walkway behind the house, evidence that one of the dogs had yet again destroyed a thriving raised bed in search of prey or a cool sleeping spot. No bother: work awaits, of all sorts, for later. Predawn mornings spent in simple reflection, staring at the sky and the earth, are my time for renewal, with no agenda or notepad.

Crickets are fiddling in a last mad attempt to attract their one true love. A bullfrog in the stock pond near the massive white oak adds a bass note to the tune, while every few minutes the cock-of-the-walk in the chicken run voices his approval of the amorous. (The cockerels being fattened for slaughter in a smaller run hold their peace, for now.)

There are no cars this early in the day. Although a state highway, the road is but a winding two-lane, and anyway, it is a quarter-mile from the house, so the noise of any traffic is only a minor background hum even at high tide, as our numbers flood over the land in pursuit of work and play. No mowers, no chainsaws, no other of the usual indicators signal that any but the overhead guides and myself are awake.

I sit, churched alone. Until, inevitably, two of the dogs come around the corner, having been alerted through sixth sense to my silent presence. They accept the fact, without alarm, that I have somehow materialized and take up watch next to my chair. We sit and listen together. A few more minutes and the cat joins the reverie. The light has grown incrementally, and the mood starts to shift as the gods begin to weaken their hold on me, the land, and the sky.

I hear a persistent cricket in the nearby field, clinging to the endless search that brings us all into this world. Only after a few more moments of reflection do I come to understand that this cricket, alone, is the clicking of the electric fence, pulsing and popping in the wet grass.

Now my mind begins to think of the day ahead. Sensing the change, the dogs shift from my side and bolt in pursuit of a reluctant groundhog in the loaded muscadine vines. My list, which I haven’t been aware of until now, grows by another task. The time is here to harvest not only muscadines but also figs. Both are plump and ready for the plucking. I’ll also undertake making my annual whole-fig preserves. Then, on a cool night come fall, they will be served as an accompaniment to a dinner of gumbo made with one of the fattened cockerels that have now begun to crow in the new day’s light.

Draining my cup, I rise and give a nod to Venus. We will dally again, I tell her. Heading back into the house (for it is time to get on with the chores), I leave her to await the coming of her morning consort over the eastern horizon.

…………………………………………………………………

Re-reading this weekend: Holy Smoke (G. C. Infante), the classic Marxist work on the joys of smoking cigars. And, here I speak of Groucho, not that other Marx fellow.

Follow